Shit! The voices were gaining on him, yet his tired legs refused to go any faster. He had hoped the cops would keep their promise, keep him safe. Yet somehow, Anna got a whiff of his betrayal and had been chasing him for the last five hours.

He ran and ran. Eventually, he found it increasingly difficult to breathe. The darkness began to turn white and his eyes began to spin. Although he did see the banyan on his right, the sprawling root was invisible to him, thanks to his fatigue. He tripped and he crashed hard onto the ground. Anna’s men were far too experienced to not guess what had happened and were right on top of him within seconds. They had their man.

They got him on his knees. No need to tie him or gag him. Not deep in the heart of this forest. Through his haze, he saw a tall man approaching him. He held a revolver against the temple of his forehead and whispered, “All I had asked of you was to keep your fucking mouth shut!”. Saying so, he spat on his face and pulled the trigger. All went black.

Shiva had started from Dhule really early in the morning for Gondia. He had already been driving for the whole of the previous day, when his sheth instructed him to take the Tata Sumo to Gondia with two passengers. He was really very tired, right from the time he had embarked upon the journey. Somewhere after Loni on NH-6, he began to feel drowsy. Right there he decided that he would stop at Badnera to get some rest. Let these two idiots complain, he thought. I will convince sheth later.

Munna woke up with a shudder, wet all over. He looked around and found himself right where he had slept off, in the same bush along National Highway 6. He had called the cops the previous day and asked them to take him in right at that spot. They had promised to be there by 8:00 am. Munna checked his watch, he had 5 more minutes.

He wiped his sweat with his shirt, the same one he had been wearing since he ran from Anna’s adda three days ago. He heaved a sigh of relief when he found that all that he had seen was only a dream. Right then, he heard a honk from the other side of the road. The familiar white Qualis caught his eye. He was saved.

Now Relief, they say, is a bitch. It makes you drop your guard, makes your senses really blunt. Which is exactly why Munna did not notice the speeding Sumo with a semi-conscious Shiva at its wheel. Right then, all went black.

What happened in the Mangalore pub was very unfortunate and whoever was responsible must be duly punished. Freedom cannot be compromised.

But, a few points need clarification …

1) Do you claim to be ‘forward’ because you are loose and you go to pubs?

2) If not, is it because of the pink chaddies that you are ‘forward’?

3) And if none of these is true, how do you substantiate your claim of being ‘forward’?

As the reasons for your ‘forward’ness are not visible in any of the media articles pertaining to you, kindly answer the above questions. Or else drop the word from your name so that it won’t misguide the people.

Firstly, it is pretty clear that the World Association of Sexologists (if it exists!) has nothing to do. So they study how arbitrary factors such as, well, the financial crisis, the exact number of hair on Viru paaji’s head or maybe how many times I sneeze in a day would affect the bedtime rituals of couples in our country. And secondly, how in the hell does this study affect people? Those who don’t want to have sex won’t and maybe some others will. However reading such crap does give me big time entertainment and who better than the ToI to give it? This is surely the quote for the day:

“Teji ma time nathi, mandi ma mood nathi” (No time for sex during a bull run, no mood for it during a crash)

It’s a well known fact in quizzing circles and even outside that the Centre Court at Wimbledon is going to have a retractable roof by 2009. The immediate outcome of this construction is that there are more seats available in the stands this year. Obviously, these seats were not sold before the event began as no one was certain that they would be available. So, they sold these tickets online via ticketmaster everyday at 8.30 pm local time for the matches to be held on the next day. A novel scheme.

Taking advantage of this facility, I bought one of these tickets. The seat was somewhere high up in the stands but the chance of seeing live tennis on Centre Court was a rare one. Since I do not have a ticketmaster account and I am probably not going to need one in the near future, I bought the ticket using my aunt’s account.

Next morning I took the train to Southfields station and reached the grounds at 10.30. Then things started to mess up. At the entrance, the security bloke asked me for a proof of identity. Now the ticket bore my aunt’s name and there was no way I could have matched my face with hers. So I explained the situation to them and offered to submit a proof of my own identity as Kaustubh Bhat and a proof of my relation with her. Sounds fair enough. Then a lady in charge of all grievances and disputes told me that no proof would be of help and that only my aunt could enter on that ticket.

Then I offered to call my aunt there for them to verify my claim. But the lady didn’t budge. I stood there feeling hopeless and pretty pissed off. But at the same time probably my face looked very pitiable too because immediately she said,”Well, we are releasing about five to six Centre Court tickets right now. I you want one, I will keep one for you. But you will have to pay cash.” Joy! I practically ran to the ATM, got cash and immediately bought the ticket.

Now fate has weird ways of working. The seat I got now was right behind the referee 12 rows behind. So all the crap I suffered was quite worth it with me ending up with a better seat. Just like the great Birbal said – “Jo hota hai so achche ke liye hota hai”

My 47 day stay in England has finally ended and indeed it has been an awesome experience. Fortunately enough, my last week there turned out to be the high point of the whole thing and I got to see Rafael Nadal play on Centre Court at Wimbledon. My seat was right behind and to the right of the referee 12 rows behind. On the downside, all the three matches were straightforward sfaairs with the victors not dropping a set. But then again you can’t get everything.

It was also to my tremendous bad luck that I did not get a chance to go to Old Trafford. I made up for it by say 80% when I went to the Enirates Stadium in North London. Why Emirates? Well, skillwise I would say that Arsenal are unmatched in the EPL (even better than United) and hence they are quite an admirable side. Anyway, the stadium is quite well built. There is a beautiful museum chronicling the history of the Gunners.

The last two days were spent in trying to pack (and re-pack) the horrendous amount of stuff I had to take back with me. The flight back on Friday was very very uncomfortable leaving me stiff for the best part of Saturday. On landing, it felt amazing to finally smell the wet, sweaty and salty air of Mumbai, a moment which was surely the cherry on the icing …